As to the former, a reader may be able to judge, more or less, from what has been written in previous sections. Experiments, for what they are worth, have been in favour of the aeroplane. In the future, too, it will have increasing speed to help it. That it can fly 3000 feet high, and carry out its reconnoitring work efficiently, has been demonstrated.
The wise view to take of this question, in consideration of the most recent data, is that a certain percentage of war aeroplanes will fall victims to gunfire, but that this percentage will be a very small one, and that it will be in no way sufficient to mar the success of the work that a squadron of air-scouts will be able to undertake.
The suggestion is now made that, in order to secure some conclusive results, power-driver aeroplanes, without occupants, should be made to ascend, and be directed on a pre-arranged course, while subjected to artillery-fire. Such a method would be costly, however; but it might certainly yield remarkably interesting data.
Then there is the question of hostilities between aircraft, to which several references have been made. Here, again, theory has to take the place of practice. It is perfectly certain that, as machines cross from their own lines to those of the enemy, engagements will take place between them and hostile craft—which will seek to check them in their aerial spying.
[Illustration: TRAVELLING WORKSHOP. Photo, M. Branger. In the French manœuvres, a completely-equipped aeroplane repair shop, in the form of a motor-wagon, followed the military airmen as they moved from point to point. One of these invaluable "ateliers" is pictured above.]
That special fighting machines will be built is practically certain, also; and it is probable that, in wars of the future, engagements between these aerial opponents will precede reconnoitring work. How such flights in the air will end it is, however, difficult to predict. If some form of light explosive shell is fired, one well-placed shot will probably wreck a machine, or render it unmanageable. An aerial duel promises to be over quickly. The skill will, no doubt, lie in getting in the first shot, and in making that an accurate one.
Although, in some respects, the future is obscure, there is, upon one important point, most definite data to proceed upon. This is that the aeroplane is an instrument which will entirely change military reconnaissance.
"We are in the presence of a new and formidable science that will
revolutionise warfare." So spoke Colonel Seely, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for War, at a special gathering of the
Aeronautical Society on 18th December, 1911.
At the moment, all other problems are subservient to this: whatever its destructive powers may prove to be, and whatever may be the result of well-directed artillery-fire upon aerial scouts, no great nation can afford to neglect this new weapon.
If any country dare to do so, and others go ahead, then the nation which lags behind will stand in imminent peril in war-time. It may have a fine army, or a great fleet, but if it does not possess aeroplanes, and its opponent has them, it will be at a very serious disadvantage.